The equal joint venture between Future Consumer Ltd (FCL) and UK's largest wholesaler, plans to open about 60-70 stores in the next three years to sell merchandise to local kirana stores, hotels and catering firms.

“Booker India has developed one of the lowest cost distribution networks for FMCG products through its cash and carry network in India,” said Kishore Biyani, Vice-Chairman, FCL that sell two dozen products across categories with brands such as Golden Harvest, Tasty Treat, Sunkist, Clean Mate and Care Mate. "We will leverage their expertise in engaging with small, neighborhood retailers and reach out to them with the FMCG brands and products being developed by our organization.”

The JV is part of Biyani's wider strategy to reach Rs 20,000 crore in sales from in-house brands by 2021 and push these higher margins products outside its own 800-odd stores. While Future Group operates around 13 million square feet of retail space with an annual customer footfall of 295 million, it sells own brands to Tata StarBazaar, Metro and Spar.

While Booker entered India in 2009, it has not expanded its operations aggressively and now has six stores in Maharashtra and Gujarat. FCL the food and FMCG arm of Future Group, operates retail chains such as KB’s Fairprice, Big Apple, Aadhaar & Nilgiri’s and also has a food processing facility at Tumkur, Karnataka. On Monday, FCL posted a 27% increase in net sales at Rs438 crore during quarter ended September with net loss of Rs 4 lakh.

"Together Booker and Future Group can scale up the business and reach out to a much larger number of retailers and customers in India," Charles Wilson, Chief Executive Office, Booker Group said.

With at least four players, Walmart, Metro, Bookers and Reliance -operating 92 cash and carry stores, nearly 2.6% of traditional trade in all consumer product goods (CPG) moves through organised wholesale. The Rs 6,800 crore market has been growing at 13%, faster than modern trade, albeit on a lower base. Within the country, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra contribute half the wholesale sales with soft drinks (12%) dominating the channel in terms of value within the CPG space, followed by toilet soaps (9%) and washing powder (8%), according to a Nielsen report last year.

The Indian unit of the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores posted sales of Rs 3996.8 crore for fifteen months ended March 2016 while Metro AG had a turnover of Rs 3,439.9 crore for 2013-14. Future Group also owns Aadhaar, a rural and semi-urban wholesale and distribution format that has 30 franchisees stores with sales of Rs191.74 crore last fiscal.